Dynamics of Contention purports to show how social movements, revolutions, strike waves, nationalism, democratization, and other types of contention result from “similar mechanisms and processes”, and claim that more may be learned by comparative studies than through singular topical study. The authors aim to discover “recurring causal sequences of contentious politics” (p. 4), and to breach topical boundaries as well as the demarcation between institutionalized and noninstitutionalized politics. They define contentious politics as “episodic, public, collective interaction among makers of claims and their objects when (a) at least one government is a claimant, an object of claims, or a party to the claims and (b) the claims would, if realized, affect the interests of at least one of the claimants”. (“Interest” is uninterrogated). They go on to say, “roughly translated, the definition refers to collective political struggle” (p. 5).